Just short of greatness

Pinnaduwage Aravinda de Silva is an uncomplicated cricketer who long ago had reduced batsmanship to its simplest form. Few modern batsmen brought to the arena the kind of anticipation that Aravinda did. He was that rare player: a crowd favourite as well as a cricketer's cricketer.

While those seated 75 yards away cheered his ability to strike, those closer on the field were often in awe of the manner in which he did it. Despite a tendency in later years to rely more on the bottom hand, he brought it down straighter than his contemporaries and hit through the line with the assurance that only those who combine a good eye and a good technique can have. Like a cat, he never made angles to the wind - the geometry of his batsmanship was contained in arcs rather than angles.

Others might hit the ball harder or drive more stylishly, but he knew how much more effective it was to send the best deliveries of respected bowlers screaming to the fence. Aravinda was as capable of patting a full toss back to the bowler as he was of hitting a length ball for six. He brought up his first Test century with a hooked six off Imran Khan, and began another innings by hitting Kapil Dev over the rope.

Had he batted with greater circumspection, he might have finished with a better average than 42.97 from 93 Test matches, but then he wouldn't have been Aravinda. And being Aravinda also meant being the quintessential Sri Lankan batsman: creative, cheeky, and full of surprises. It is difficult to say goodbye to one who gave so much pleasure.

Aravinda was the best batsman Sri Lanka produced, for consistency, longevity and mastery over two forms of cricket. His 9284 runs in one-dayers is exceeded only by Sachin Tendulkar and Mohammad Azharuddin. His 20 Test centuries and 11 one-day hundreds place him among the best in the game.

Yet all those figures do not add up to that elusive quality called greatness. And for a good reason. Few top batsmen in the history of the game have looked as ordinary as Aravinda did when he was out of form. In the words of the nursery rhyme, when he was good he was very good - even great - but when he was bad, he was horrid.

It is a harsh judgment on a man who made 6361 runs in Tests with a highest of 267, 20 centuries and 22 fifties but in the final analysis he failed to live up to potential. He could have been a great player, easily one of three of four best that Asia has ever produced; instead he was a very good player who was his country's number one batsman for a decade.

Like most Sri Lankan players of his generation, Aravinda's first coach and greatest supporter was his father, Sam, a happy man who shared that happiness around. Soon after his debut in the Lord's Test of 1984, Aravinda picked up the nickname 'Mad Max' - not for any resemblance to Mel Gibson in the movie of that name, but for the mad way he drove - and tried to live up to it by using offence as the only form of defence. Three hundreds in Pakistan next season helped him settle in, but it wasn't until his epic 267 against New Zealand in Wellington in 1990-91 that Aravinda emerged as the star batsman of the team. The ability to read length early and drive through the line were the attributes that caused some to liken him to Pakistan's Javed Miandad. But Aravinda was a gentle Javed, not given to the same tantrums and tricky ways. And increasingly, he became more important to Sri Lanka than Miandad was to Pakistan.

"It annoys me when I get out early," Aravinda once declared in his simple, direct way. And in one spell between April 1997 and January 1998 ensured that even if he did get out, he did so only after pulling, cutting and driving the bowlers round the bend. He made a staggering seven hundreds in eight Test innings on the various grounds in Colombo, including six in a row.

By then Aravinda had emerged as one of two or three best batsmen in the world. The 1996 World Cup was his personal showcase: he made an outstanding century, claimed three wickets and took two catches in the final. Nobody has ever dominated a World Cup final so thoroughly, but it is the style of the century rather than the weight of runs that people remember. With Aravinda, it was ever thus. Suresh Menon is a widely travelled cricket writer and former editor of New Sunday Express. He is currently based in Bangalore. This article first appeared when de Silva retired from Test cricket.